Mad Ship

She did not need to see his face. She didn't even need to look up at his stance. She knew she had conquered completely in the moment he replied, "I could think of nothing I should like better than to be your tutor in such things."

CHAPTER EIGHT

Immersions

HE STOPPED! VIVACIA WAS ASTONISHED.

"No!" Wintrow shrieked, his voice breaking to a boy's on the word.

He spun away from the railing and hurled himself from the foredeck to the main. He crossed it at a run, then raced down the companionway. Fear of death had been all that had kept the pirate clinging to life. When Wintrow and Vivacia had persuaded him not to fear it, Ke

"Don't wake him!" she cautioned him. "He's finally resting."

"He's trying to be dead!" Wintrow contradicted her as he shouldered past her. At Ke

He was dead.

KENNIT SETTLED INTO THE DARK, DRIFTING DOWN GENTLY LIKE A LEAF falling to the forest floor. He felt warm and comfortable. A thin silver thread of pain anchored him to his life. It attenuated as he fell. Soon it must fade to nothing and then he would be free of his body. It did not seem worth his attention. Nothing was worth his attention. He let go of himself and felt his consciousness expand. Never before had he comprehended how cramped a man's thoughts were when confined to a mere body. All those discordant worries and ideas jumbled together like a sailor's swag in his sea bag. Now they could spread out and disco

Abruptly he felt a tug. An insistence he could not resist drew him into itself. Reluctantly he gave way to it, but once it possessed him, it did not seem to know what to do with him. He mingled with it confusedly. It was like being plunged into a kettle of simmering fish chowder. First one thing and then another bobbed to the surface, only to float away a moment later. He was a woman, combing out her long hair as she stared thoughtfully across the water. He was Ephron Vestrit, and by Sa, he would bring his cargo through intact and on time, storm or no. He was a ship, the cold water purring past his bow, shining fish flickering below and stars glittering above him. Deeper, higher and wider than all others, encompassing them all but thin as a coat of shellac, there was another awareness, one that spread wide her wings and soared through a summer sky. That one drew him more strongly than any of the others did and when it drifted away from him, he tried to follow it.

No, someone forbade him, gently but firmly. No. I do not go there and neither shall you. Something drew him back and held him together. He felt like a child, supported in a mother's arms, protected and cherished. She loved him. He settled into her embrace. She was the ship, the lovely, intelligent ship he had won. The stirring of that memory was like a breath on the ember of his being. He glowed brighter and almost became aware of who he had been. That was not what he desired. He rolled over and burrowed into her, merging with her, becoming her. Lovely, lovely ship, hull to the cupping water, sails in a caressing wind, I am you and you are I. When I am you, I am wondrous and wise. He sensed her amusement at his flattery, but flattery it was not. In you, I could be perfect, he told her. He sought to dissipate himself but she held him intact.

She spoke again, her words intended for someone else. I have him. Here. You must take him and put him back. I do not know how.

A boy's voice replied. It was uncertain and thin as smoke, coming from a great distance. Fear was making him jabber. I don't know what you mean. How can you have him, how can I take him? Put him back how? Put him back where? The pleading desperation in the young voice rang against something inside him. It woke echoes of another boy's voice, just as desperate, just as pleading. Please. I can't do that. I don't know how, I don't want to, please, sir, please. It was the hidden voice, the secret voice, the voice that must never be acknowledged. No one else must hear it, no one. He flung himself upon it, wrapped himself around it and stilled it. He absorbed it into himself to conceal it. The divergence that was the key to him was restored. A shiver of anger ran over him, that they had forced him to be himself again.

Like that, she said suddenly to the other one. Like that. Find the pieces of him and put them back into one. More softly, she added, There are places where you almost match. Begin with those.

What do you mean, he matches me? How could he match me?

I meant only that in some ways you resemble one another. You share more than you realize. Do not fear him. Take him. Restore him.

He clung to the ship's being more tightly than ever. He would not allow himself to be separated from her. Frantically, he strove to weave himself into her, twining his consciousness into hers as a single rope is woven from multiple strands. She did not repulse him, but neither did she welcome him in. Instead, he felt himself gathered back together, and offered in turn to an entity that was both of her and distinct from her.

Here. Take him. Put him back.

The co

Come back. Please. It was the boy's voice, pleading. Ke

The name was a magic. It bound and defined him. The boy sensed that. Ke

Please, he begged. He groped for his tormentor's name. Wintrow. Please let me go. Wintrow. He sought to bind the boy as he had been bound, by the use of his name. Instead of bending Wintrow to his will, it only locked him into an awareness of the boy.

Ke

A curious thing happened then. In Wintrow's urgent welcome of his self-awareness and Ke